1. Field of the Invention
The present invention generally relates to electronic mail (email). More specifically, the present invention provides a method, system, and computer program product for alerting an email user prior to any subsequent distribution of a received blind carbon-copied email message.
2. Background Art
As the use of computer technology continues to expand, computer users are increasingly communicating with each other in a network environment (e.g., over the Internet). One popular form of such communication is electronic mail (email). Email networks permit a network of communicating users to transmit documents (e.g. text, graphics, facsimile, voice, etc.) from one user to another.
Many different types of email systems exist today. Most of these systems provide a user with the ability to designate one or more primary recipients through a “TO” field and one or more secondary recipients through a “CC” or carbon-copy field. Commonly, the email addresses/names of all recipients designated through the use of TO and CC fields are identified to all other recipients of the email message. For example, if user1@email.com is designated as a TO recipient and user2@email.com is designated as a CC recipient, both user1 and user2 will be able to determine that the other was also sent the same email message. FIG. 1 illustrates an example of an email interface 10 that includes a TO field 12 and a CC field 14. The email interface 10 illustrated in FIG. 1 also includes a subject field 16 in which the subject of the email message is entered, and a text field 18 in which the text of the email message is entered. This type of email interface 10 is well known in the art and will not be described in further detail.
To provide some privacy, many email systems allow a composer (i.e., that person generating an email message) to designate one or more non-disclosed recipients through a “BCC” or blind carbon-copy field. The email interface 10 shown in FIG. 1 includes such a BCC field 20. Extending the above example, if user1@email.com is designated as a TO recipient, user2@email.com is designated as a CC recipient, and user3@email.com is designated as a BCC recipient, user3 will receive a copy of the associated electronic mail message, but will not be displayed in the message header of the TO and CC designated recipients. Accordingly, the BCC function may be used to route an email message to a third party without alerting other recipients that this is being done.
The BCC field 20 is often used to surreptitiously provide a copy of an email message to one or more “hidden” recipients without informing the recipients listed in the TO and CC fields 12, 14 that anyone else is privy to the email message. As an example, assume that an employee in a business has sent an email message containing personal company information to a co-worker, with the co-worker designated in the TO field 12 and the employee's manager designated in the BCC field 20. Also assume that it was the employee's intention that the email message not be further distributed (e.g., forwarded, replied to, copied, printed, and/or saved, etc.) by the BCC'd manager after being read. The manager, however, may not realize that he/she was a BCC recipient of the email message, and may inadvertently forward the email message to other employees, thereby unknowingly breaking a trust between the original sender of the email message and themselves, and between the employee and the co-worker. Unfortunately, currently available email systems/programs do not provide any means for alerting a user when they attempt to further distribute a BCC email message.
In view of the foregoing, there exists a need for a method, system, and program product for alerting an email user prior to any subsequent distribution of a received blind carbon-copied (BCC) email message.